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A Healthy and Tasty Enchilada

After our big British feast this past weekend, and its piles of leftovers, we’ve been preparing meals a bit on the lighter side. We also decided to break from our usual state night dinner in honor of Cinco de Mayo and cook another new recipe from Mexico. Mr. N was very excited about this because Mexico was his first choice at the start of this adventure. He’s a big fan. So for our fiesta we tried a recipe from Parents Magazine from March 2010. It’s a low-cal take on a traditional Mexican favorite – the enchilada. These Gooey Enchiladasreportedly lost 131 calories, 14 grams of fat and 400 mg of sodium from a standard Enchilada recipe.

Dad started by heating the oil in a large skillet to cook the onions and garlic. After about 7 minutes he added the fire-roasted tomatoes, coriander, cumin, oregano and pepper; and in a separate skillet he was browning the ground chicken and black beans. In the meantime, Miss A and I chopped up the cilantro which was added to the sauce. She was on a chopping kick this week.

Mr. N spread a 1/2 c of the sauce into a 9×13 baking dish.

He then added the meat and beans and some cheddar cheese into the tortillas, sampling quite a bit along the way (as only a good cook would). Next he rolled them up and placed them in the baking dish. (We likely added a few calories here as we used multi-grain tortillas instead of corn tortillas.)

The enchiladas were covered with the remaining sauce.

We baked the enchiladas uncovered at 350F for 15 minutes. We then added some Colby Jack cheese over the top and baked an additional 5 minutes.

Everyone was very happy with the results. The enchiladas were healthy, tasty and super easy to make for a weeknight meal. They received 3 spoons all around. Mr. N was even teetering on giving them a 4 – that’s saying something! We kept these mild for the kids, but this recipe can easily be kicked up for those partial to spicy foods. Stay tuned as dad takes us on another international tour this weekend. Hasta luego!

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16 thoughts on “A Healthy and Tasty Enchilada”

Your enchiladas look tasty but are not really a typical Mexican dish, maybe a TexMex.
They are close to enfrijoladas with salsa. Frijol means bean in Spanish.
I saw that you can find green tomatoes in your nopales recipe.
Then you can make the Mexican: “Switz enchiladas”, I don’t think that they are known in Switzerland, the name comes from the fact that they are prepared with cream and cheese.
There are green and red enchiladas suizas.
First you make chicken tacos,
Maize tortillas (the thin are better for this purpose),
hashed chicken breast
Salt at taste.
Just reheat the tortillas to make them tender. Depending on the quality of tortillas you can reheat them in a hot pan, or in a microwave oven within a plastic bag just until the bag inflates with the steam, BE CAREFULL the steam is too hot and burns. Once you know the time needed you can also reheat tortillas wrapped in a kitchen cloth towel or in a tortillero or a covered recipient which keeps the steam in to heat the tortillas.
now that the tortillas are soft and flexible, place a line of chicken and roll it tight, to hold it’s shape you can use one or two wooden toothpicks and put together two tacos.
Then fry them and remove all the remaining oil in the tacos with paper towels after removing the toothpicks.
If you just want to eat tacos, you can put guacamole onion and salsa, but now we are making enchiladas, let’s prepare the salsa:
You need:
green tomatoes,
onion,
fresh coriander
chile serrano o chile jalapeño if you do not find serrano.
a little clove of garlic.
Usually the tomatoes are cooked in a comal a large circle thin iron pan, but you can also cook them in a microwave oven in a covered pyrex for about 15min depending on the power of your oven. (it is one of the few things that can be cooked in a microwave, I use it almost just to reheat meals)
also cook one chile with the tomatoes.
toast the clove of garlic, and the onion on a hot pan.
then blend the tomatoes (wait until they are not hot) with the onion, garlic, fresh coriander, the chile without seeds at your taste and salt at your taste.
Now you have a green salsa that you can use in many dishes, but now we are making enchiladas.
Place the tacos in a recipient which you can put on a broiler, (many pyrex do not support the heat).
Mix the salsa with cream (sour cream or not acid works too) and cover the tacos with the mixture, just before you are going to cook them or the tacos will become to wet.
Cover with cheese to grate.
Cook on a broiler until the cheese is grated,
Serve with onion slices,
Bon apetit!
P.S.
You can also make green enchiladas, frying the tortillas just to soften them, then dipping them in the green salsa hot to wet them in salsa, then fill with hashed chicken, roll or fold the tortillas and top them with sliced onion. That simple.
You can do them with red tomatoes too, with a salsa like you used in your enchiladas recipe.
Those made like the green enchiladas are called enchiladas tejanas, because it is the style of Tejas now Texas, but the name dates from the time that it was part of Mexico.

I think tortilla bread might just be the greatest invention known to mankind! Take awesome food and wrap it in tortilla and you have something even more wonderful – can you believe I’d never had tacos until I met my wife? Apparently they’re somewhat of a “staple” in Sweden so she was more than happy to introduce me to their greatness 😀

Never had tacos until you met your wife?! Wow! I’m not sure if I’m more surprised by that or that they’re a staple in Sweden. Who would have thought! And yes – tortillas are awesome! So many possibilities…

This time we used the Multi-Grain tortillas from Archer Farms. They sell it at Target. We didn’t have any tearing issues with these – but I know exactly what you’re talking about. We heated them wrapped in foil in the oven for about 5 minutes before we worked with them. It helped to soften them up a bit. 🙂

You must reheat them first, to make them flexible. (see my previous comment here to see how to reheat tortillas)
Use maize tortillas for enchiladas and tacos, wheat grain tortillas are tasty too, but for enchiladas I prefer maize. However it depends on the quality that you can find in the store.
Definitely don’t use tortillas de harina (those made with wheat flour, oil or shortening, water and salt) for enchiladas nor fried tacos.

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Having returned from our 7-month European sabbatical, we're returning to the kitchens and neighborhoods in our own backyard with a focus on culture, education, history and delicious food. #EatPlayWorld

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